Prognosis For Obamacare Isn't Improving

Fewer than 50,000 people had signed up for Obamacare by late last week in the 36 states that use the federal health care exchange, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is expected to release national numbers this week and they are expected to be underwhelming, too. The administration expected 800,000 would sign up for Obamacare by the end of November.

That huge gap is not surprising considering the website is less accessible than Antarctica.

The problems may not be resolved by the administration's promised deadline at the end of the month. "Where we are is not where we want to be," Obamacare fix-it guru Jeff Zients said last week.

Losing October and November to the computer meltdown means that millions of people will have, at best, days to cram through the insurance enrollment system by Dec. 15 if they want coverage that begins on Jan. 1, writes James Capretta of the American Enterprise Institute. If they can't, "it will be nearly impossible to process the enrollments fast enough to prevent breaks in insurance coverage at the beginning of 2014." Capretta's prediction: "some very large number of Americans — probably in the millions — will experience a break in insurance coverage at the beginning of 2014."

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